Between Order and Chaos
by Paradoxical3
Summary: Reality is a lie, built to uphold an idealists dream. Watch Perseus navigate through the Labyrinth of lies, unveiling truths not even the gods thought could exist. Realism always prevails in the end, anyway. Dark themes.
1. Prologue

August 18, 1993

Sally Jackson screamed as she underwent labour, the pain of conceiving a child so unbearable that she saw black dots across her vision, body screaming out in pain, yet there was no end in sight. Her hand, almost numb from gripping the man next to her, the child's father, also starting to flash in pain as her grip tightened once more. Finally, after what felt like millennia, the child inside of her was pushed out, and she lied down and relaxed, closed her eyes and melted into the comfort of the bed, drenched in her own sweat, however also resting in the embrace of the doctor was the unnamed newborn from the young woman. The doctor lied the child on Sally's chest, drawing a sharp inhale from her as she adjusted to the new weight resting upon her chest, as she forced her breathing back to normal levels. The baby was dead silent, if not for the faint flutter of his chest, one would think that he was dead. She stroked his face, admiring the definition of his face, already seeing slight resemblance between the baby and her.

Looking up at the man next to her, Poseidon, she smiled softly and said, "Thank the god's, he's got my looks". Huffing slightly, but ultimately recognising that she was only egging him on, Poseidon too, smiled as he looked at his new son. In some corner of his mind, one that he was desperately trying to ignore, was the whisper of his this was an illegal child, one that would not be able to experience happiness without Herculean hardships. For Poseidon was no average man, nor was he truly a man. Poseidon was not named as a namesake to the Greek Olympian of the seas, instead, he is the deity in question. Were this any other deity, apart from him and his brothers, the prospect of childbirth would not be an issue. However, what most mortals are unaware of, is the direct involvement of divine entities in almost every major instance of human history. One such example of this World War Two, where Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini were direct sons of Hades, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Stalin were the son of Zeus, and Winston Churchill was a son of Poseidon. Scattered throughout various commanding, governing, and soldier roles were also children of these deities, or "The Big Three", as they are denoted by other Gods and Goddesses, who reside on the land of the Gods, Olympus.

World War Two changed much in human history, it changed the face of the Europe, many countries were scared to be proud of their heritage after it, an entire Germanic population were enslaved under two different forms of Zeus' children, who were vying for political power in the mortal world, who couldn't see the damage they were causing. Poseidon's children however are heavily responsible for the civil disturbance in the Arabic world; _however, this is no coincidence_, Poseidon reflects. He should have stopped the imperialism when he could have, but he was too blinded by the pride he felt by his son's conquering prowess. England had always been his soft spot.

However, World War Two also impacted divine history as well. It was the largest scale human war, and divine war combined. God's and goddesses fought openly on fields, vaporizing mortals merely by showing their true divine form. Zeus' least proud moment was his involvement in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings, blinded by his pure hatred for Hades he ordered the bombing, knowing Thanatos and Hades were located in either of the cities, and hoping the bombing would decommission them for the remainder of the war, if not hopefully longer.

World War Two was so horrific that by the end of it, the gods re-wrote history so that it could end faster, and hopefully never happen again. It began with 1943, where Apollo and Artemis aided the Soviet armies in counter-attacking the unrelenting German machine, while other gods such as Hermes and Athena, collaborated with Mnemosyne to alter the memories of mortals and spread disinformation about the Germans, fabricating horrific war crimes in order to scare people off of Nationalism. In order to prevent a world war ever again, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus signed an agreement to never sire children again, instead letting their current ones die off, and all of the Olympian aligned deities agreed to only sire children wherever the flame of the West burnt the brightest, which at that time, was the United States of America.

All the deities aligned with Olympus swore this oath upon the River Styx, which was a river of binding promises, due to this, Poseidon's newborn will live a cursed life, a life of a broken vow, and he will be punished for his father's incompetence.

Poseidon was drawn from his musings to the sound of laughter, his child was smiling, awake and full of life and joy uncharacteristic to many newborns, and especially when put into context of what his future will be.

"His eyes… they're mesmerising…", Poseidon commented, the baby's eyes were a shade of green that he had never seen, one could definitely tell that the boy got his eyes from the father, however the striking difference was the symmetrical, vibrant and almost glowing sea green eyes. The almost glowing eyes reminded Poseidon of his father, Kronos, who's golden eyes were just as mesmerising.

"Yes, they're incredible", Sally said softly, feeling the exhaustion of the day start to gnaw at her.

The doctor looked at the couple, and said, "I'm pleased to announce that he is perfectly healthy physically and mentally, have you thought upon a name you would like to name him?"

Poseidon glanced at Sally, who nodded at him, and he said, "Yes, we name him Perseus Jackson, we would like to avoid a middle name".

The doctor nodded and hummed, finalising all of the paperwork, then he frowned, noticing an abnormality, he glanced up at Poseidon and said, "Excuse me sir…"

Poseidon froze, handing the child back to Sally, and said a soft "Ah". His eyes glowed to unnatural colours, and the mortal fell to the floor, his mind forgetting ever seeing the man before him. He stared at the man on the floor briefly, then looked mournfully at Sally and the newly named Perseus. "It is time for me to depart, permanently. I can hear Zeus calling for me, and I cannot risk either of your lives, not now, not ever. He will kill both of you without listening to reason. I am sorry" The man almost looked broken, having to deliver such news to a woman who just birthed his child.

However, Sally knew this was coming, after all the man was married and it could never have lasted. But it still stung, and she said, "It's okay, my love. Go, go and watch our son in his darkest and brightest hours. Just be there when he needs you the most, and I will never regret what we had". Poseidon smiled at this, and as quick as a blink of the eye, he disappeared into sea mist, living a strong smell of the sea behind him.

As the doctor woke up, confusedly and promptly forgetting what happened, Sally drifted to a dreamless sleep. Looking at her from the window, a man tilted his head and "Hmmm'd", "Interesting", he said. If anyone could see him, they would have sworn they saw him briefly, then as quick as he came he disappeared from view, never moving a muscle and staying rooted to the spot.

**And there we go. This is just a bit of a teaser, I wanted to give you a taste of my writing style. I'm going to try be as detailed as possible, and this time I've got a very good idea of where I'm going to take this. I hope you enjoy history and politics, because I'm going to incorporate both into this.**

**Hint, if you've ever read Finding Paradise (another Percy Jackson fanfiction) you will definitely be intrigued by this. I'm following a similar idea that they incorporated. **

**\- Paradoxical**


	2. I Perseus who?

**May 31, 2002**

It was Perseus' last day of grade 3, at a school which he had been attending for the past year, after he was requested to leave from the old one, due to breaking the noses of multiple other children.

Their teacher was standing at the front of the light brown coloured classroom, waiting for some of the noise to die down.

"Alright settle down now, that's it, shush, Nick. There we go, now, I can see you're all excited since this is the last day of school, but you haven't finished yet. Kate, what have I been saying all year?" Mr Princeton asked.

After her initial embarrassment at getting called out, Katie said, "Work hard until the end", turning red when her friends behind her started giggling.

Without missing a beat, Princeton asked Tracey, who was seated behind Katie, "And tell me why working hard is important, Tracey." Now it was her turn to be embarrassed, and she started stuttering.

"Uhm… b-b-because…" Unwilling to let her suffer for too long, though allowing her to sweat it out for two seconds, Princeton then said,

"Perseus, why don't you tell me?"

"Well my mum always tells me that working hard, even when you could do fine by doing less shows that you care about what you're doing, and you always say that 'if we don't care, why are we here?'", the green-eyed boy said easily

"Exactly, and we're not finished yet, so we keep working hard. You can be silly after school, Ron" Princeton reprimanded, glaring at the red headed boy in the corner talking to his friend, James.

**Linebreak**

The grade three boys were playing side-to-side chasey on the small oval that the school owned, and Perseus was one of the last people who weren't caught yet, being one of the faster runners in the school.

He was mapping out a route to safely get from his side's safe zone, the shed, to the other side, next to the tennis courts.

He saw his opportunity moments later, sprinting across.

_Dodge to the left_

_Strafe to the right_

He saw someone gaining on him from his peripheral vision, he feinted left, then full sprinted right, catching them off guard as they were putting their body weight to the left to finally catch him, instead falling to the ground face first, getting his clothes all dirty.

Having reached the other side, he sat down and rested, getting his breath back.

He heard a distinct _crunch _of a sports shoe upon rocks in the ground. Turning around, he saw William 'Billy' Rogers. The boy was the notorious bully of Perseus' grade, Billy pushed Perseus back, but he kept his ground.

Looking at him angrily, he said, "What was that for, idiot?"

"You tripped me", was the slow, brutish reply.

"So? Don't trip next time, play the game", Perseus said incredulously.

But his poor attempt at diffusing the situation surprisingly, didn't do much. Instead, Billy's two friends came over.

"Say sorry to me and join the tagged team." Billy said, and at Perseus' silence he said, again, "Do it now or else".

Perseus started giggling, "Or else? Who are you?" But what he wasn't expecting was the bully to try to tackle him, he panicked, and it felt like someone knocked the feeling out of his gut, and he hunched over in pain. But by some miracle, before the bully reached him he screamed out as his leg gave way, twisting at an unnatural angle.

His friends froze in shock, before running at Perseus too, believing he had something to do with it. The first friend tripped before he got close to Perseus, hitting a surprisingly uneven patch of land in the finely kept grass. The second friend suddenly started gasping for breath, almost as if he was suffering from an asthma attack.

It was unironically a comical sight, if anyone saw it.

**Linebreak **

Ten minutes later, Perseus was in the dean's office, while the other three boys were in the infirmary, he was being absolutely blasted by the adults in the room.

"Disgraceful!", said one.

"An absolute mockery!", said another.

"This is proof that we should teach instead of having lunch break!", Perseus thought that was a little extreme, and even the other teachers looked a bit perplexed by the statement.

Forgetting anyone said anything, the Dean sat there and waited for his mother, Sally Jackson, and his step-father, Gabe Ugliano.

Perseus sat there, appearing attentive but quietly meditating, calming his beating heartbeat. No one was aware of this, but Perseus was deathly afraid of what Gabe was capable of. When he was little, he saw Gabe hit his mother so hard that she passed out and smashed her head on the side of the counter. When she woke up, she was so concussed that she didn't remember what had happened, and the greasy man lied about what had happened, saying she slipped in the kitchen. Gabe didn't know that he had seen what he did, however. But he will never forget it, and one day Gabe wouldn't either.

Sitting in the central seat in the dean's office, currently holding himself, the Dean, and four other teachers, he caught the eye of Mr. Di Stefano, a quiet maths teacher. Di Stefano was staring at him with his silver eyes, and cocked his head to the side, as if to ask something, but Perseus quickly looked away, not knowing what to do.

A resounding _*BANG* _signalled the entrance of Gabe and his mother, looking enraged and definitely not sober, and worried respectively. His mother sat next to him, while Gabe took the free seat closer to the dean.

The whole time while the Dean talked about how he beat up the other children, Perseus didn't even bother correcting him or protesting, knowing that his mind was already set, but Gabe was glaring at him the entire time, in all honesty it was probably because this would mean that he came home a couple hours earlier today, and this was interrupting his poker. _Greasy pig_, he thought.

Mr. Di Stefano still had not stopped looking at him, but it was less intense now that his mother was sitting next to him, gripping his shoulder tightly.

"…and due to this, we, as the officials of the school, do not feel that it is appropriate for Perseus to return to this school in the next annum. We can recommend similar schools, but Mr Ugliano and Mrs Jackson, this is not the one for your child. Thank you for your time, if there's no questions…?", The dean trailed of, seeing that there were no questions, he gestured for the teachers to leave, and Perseus and his family followed suit.

Arriving back at their apartment, Gabe growled, "We're having a bit of family bonding now", taking a swig from his already opened cheap whiskey.

"Percy, up to your room", Sally said, although, her calm tone was betrayed by the fear in her eyes.

Before he could leave, Gabe leapt at him and held him down, and Sally's face hardened as her eyes flashed, she spun Gabe around and slapped him across the face. He looked indecisive for a second, before he turned back around and picked up Perseus, only to throw him towards his room door with the force and speed uncanny of a fat, drunken man.

"Careful, _honey_, you wouldn't want to hurt your head on the counter again, would you?", The man said, wearing a shit eating grin, and Sally's eyes widened in realization, as she stumbled back repeating 'No, no, no' over and over again. Gabe snorted, "Pathetic".

Perseus was thoroughly relieved when Gabe walked away to get more whiskey, and although his neck was hurting from whiplash, he ran to his mother and hugged her, teary eyed, but glad it was over, for now.

**November 5, 2004**

The bus rumbled as Perseus' grade 5 history class travelled on their school excursion to the Saratoga National Historical Park, the area in which the American Revolutionaries gained significant ground against the Imperial British and won a monumental battle in October 1777. Perseus looked outside the window, stretching for kilometres were green pastures with the odd tree sticking out of other clusters of trees. 11-year-old Perseus sat in the bus, slightly bored, and irritated that today he missed out on one of his Physical Education lessons. History was one of Perseus' preferred subjects, however he could not quench his dislike for the people around him, the other kids were loud and annoying, the majority of the teachers on the excursion were too busy talking to each other about inconsequential topics to stop the banter at the back of the bus.

The only teacher that looked slightly aware of the situation was a young man name called Nickolas Di Vela. He was an average man, if one saw him upon the streets they wouldn't look at him twice, after all he never held eye contact with anyone unless he was having a conversation, almost always wore a cap, and dressed completely in clothing that did not stand out, using colour neutral tones such as varying tones of grey and black. Outside of teaching, the man rarely said anything. But no man could say that he wasn't observant, and the second that the class clown, James (Jim) Jones, pulled out a pair of firecrackers, with the full intent to light them and then throw them further down the bus, Mr. Di Vela was out of his seat, his silver eyes locked onto Jim's, and his out stretched hand awaiting the handover of the contraband.

Jim tried to play dumb, having already hid them in his pants moments before the teacher was over at end of the bus, "Today, Jim." The teacher said in his soft yet firm tone, Perseus could swear that there was almost an undertone of amusement in his voice, so subtle that he nearly missed it. _Was that a twitch in the corner of his mouth? _"Your lighter, as well. Thank you, good boy. Play nice now".

And just like that, the mood of the back of the bus changed completely. Jim Jones didn't say anything for the remainder of the trip.

**Linebreak**

Walking through the Saratoga fields Perseus could feel the death on the land, the stench of it lingering but he could also feel something else there.

"Alright class, we will take a break here. You can eat your recess, if you please", Said Perseus' least favourite teacher, Ms Black. She was a small woman, with dark, beady eyes. Face wrinkled like she had spent a lifetime in the sun, but she couldn't have been a day older than 50.

Perseus sat down under a tree, with his only friend in the class. Thomas Gottingham. He was a large boy, for an eleven-year-old. Long, messy black hair and murky sea-green eyes. Jim Jones often riled both the boys up, joking about them for their similarities in looks, however the class clown was not wrong in his banter, for if they shared the same family name, there would be no doubt that they were in fact, brothers.

"Percy, swapsies, gimme some cake and you can have half my donut", Thomas said eager to have some of Perseus' blue marble cake.

He laughed, "take a hike, Tommy, this is mine. I'll take that half of that donut, though", trying to swipe the treat out of Thomas' hands.

"Aw, come on man, your mum's cooking is legendary, its out of this world", Thomas exclaimed, his stomach conveniently growling for dramatic effect. Perseus relented, he considered giving him the smallest portion of his cake that he could without looking like a dick, then decided to go half of that amount. Perseus is a dick.

Thomas laughed, "I'll be back in a second", he said, "Need to pee".

"Alright, just go behind a tree of something", Perseus replied, with a hint of a smile on his face.

As Perseus was left on his own, he stared at an onlook of trees, rooting out parts where he could climb, when he felt a soft crunch of footsteps, faint that he nearly missed the tremor in the earth's surface, he tilted his head to the side, "Come to join me, Mr. Di Vela? Careful, the grass is wet", he said in his smoothest voice.

"Naturally", was the amused reply. "Do you know what makes these lands special?" At Perseus' silence, Nickolas elaborated, "Blood, sweat, and tears were all shed here, fighting for what they believed was the truth. Were either of them right, perhaps? Actually no, forget I asked that. You already know that there is no such thing as right and wrong, or good and bad. There is only a matter of perspectives. It is what I admire about your young mind."

"What I don't understand though, why would an ethnicity fight against itself like this?" Perseus asked inquisitively, his brows furrowing in confusion.

"Power, pure and simple. The British Empire was built upon the principals of power, and its entire legacy is focused on it. Though it is what I would call hard power, something that can be measured in numbers, or in their case, land. It was a destructive system; it could never sustain itself. Any system that deliberately goes out of its boundaries to oppress a majority population group, is doomed to fail. Its why feudalism died, and its why communism and socialism have such large incentives. One would need to ask themselves, where is the perfect line between order and chaos? Can polar opposite personalities co-exist peacefully?" As always, Nickolas' words were barely understood by Perseus, as he struggled to comprehend the vague ideas introduced to him, but he got enough pieces of the puzzle to fill the rest of the holes.

"I think… yes, it is possible. It would just require a constant compromise of morals, or ideals", Perseus replied unsurely.

"It is clear that I am starting to get through to you, it is so difficult to compromise unless you benefit highly, as was shown in the American Revolution from the British. The Imperials wanted their empire, they wanted everything to be theirs, and the American Colonists wanted independence. Where is there room for compromise in this scenario? The only place it could come from would be the colonists, because if the Imperialists gave independence to one nation, others would follow suit. But because the colonists wanted their freedom, they felt that they had no choice but to revolt." Nickolas mused, "Of course, there is always more than two choices, and if you can't see any, you just have to create them."

"I see your friend is returning, I'll leave you to it. Think upon what I said." He left to go explore the cannons in the surrounding pasture, unbeknown to Perseus, he looked over and smiled, excitedly waiting, one would say if they saw his face.

"What did Vela want?", Came Thomas' voice from behind him, sitting down and taking a large gulp of water, looking refreshed as he drank.

"Nothing special, his usual history lessons. Starting at one topic and ending up somewhere completely different, you know him" Perseus mumbled.

**Linebreak**

As Perseus got up, he told Thomas he was going to the bus grab something he left on there, however during his walk there, a cannon caught his eye, it looked in perfect condition. He walked over to it and knelt at it, imagining that he was in the revolutionary war. But the most peculiar thing occurred, it felt akin to a static shock, when he touched the cannon, and he accidentally lit the cannon up, and the fuse was burning, _where did that come from, _he wondered.

Thomas was over by a unused barbeque, with Jim Jones, laughing at some silly jokes he was spewing, when Ms. Black approached him, "Mr. Gottingham, where is Jackson?", she said in her peculiar voice.

"On the bus, Miss, he forgot something", Thomas replied. With a newfound glint in her eye, she walked over to the bus, but to her surprise there was no one in it. It was mere seconds, but she felt a ripple in the atmosphere, her beady eyes flashed red, just as the power of 40 kilograms of iron travelling at breakneck speeds, smashed into the bus, annihilating the vehicle and sending flames sky high, as the entire thing exploded.

Everybody rushed to see what happened, but specifically stayed clear of what was once a bus. Perseus sprinted away from the cannon, feeling his legs wanting to turn to jelly in reaction to what he did.

If anybody saw Nickolas' face, they would have been very alarmed. The mysterious man was red in the face from holding back laughter, unable to stop his smile.

"Never change, please never change" He mumbled under his breath. He clicked his fingers, and manipulated the Mist, a magical force that hides divine activity from the gaze of mortals, so that the burning wreckage disappeared, and a new teacher was in the place of Ms. Black. He changed the memory of all the people there, except Perseus. And then he proceeded to act dumb, as if a bus wasn't bombed.

Perseus stuck his head from around a tree, only to see a new bus and a group of kids laughing as they played tag around it.

He blinked twice rapidly and said, "What?!", and then he too, stopped paying attention to his own memories.

**Ladies and gentlemen, meet Perseus. Here's two little excerpts from Perseus' life before he attends Yancy Academy. I was going to write out three excerpts, but after the second one it almost seemed unnecessary. **

**I'm always looking for ways to improve my writing, so please review and let me know, I will read every one, flames included. Though please be more detailed than "fuck this lol".**

**My personal goal is to increase the amount I write per chapter, but with this will mean more time between each publication, as I don't want to rush out anything, and detail is important to me. I'm still not where I'd like to be, with describing things, and I definitely need to break up some of the information sequences with dialogue, or combine the two, but baby steps. Next chapter will be fun.**

**-Paradoxical**


	3. II Battle of the Statues

**_Philosophy begins in wonder_**

\- Plato

Perseus sighed.

Why did he sigh? Well, looking around him one could spot an extremely distinctive bob of red hair, bouncing up and down as the owner of said hair punched someone repeatedly in the head.

"Nancy, get off of her!", came the shout from the seats next to them.

"This girl is a fucking spastic", Perseus heard a boy named Adam say. He was seated two seats in front of Perseus, and one behind the so called 'Nancy'. He waited a couple more seconds, no more than ten, before he finally had enough. Leaving his seat, he stepped over them and grabbed the aggressor, Nancy Bobofit, by the neck and hoisted her up, dropping her to the ground in the isle of the bus.

Adam was no small boy by any means, he was tall but slightly chubby, but deceptively strong. His dark hair fell down to his shoulders, and as he turned his back to go back to his seat, he felt a strong pull on his hair, spinning around he grabbed the offending hand, only to see Nancy was back up and looked angrier.

The girl swung a sucker-punch at him, which he grabbed mid-air with his other hand and twisted her arm, causing her look of anger to quickly fade to shock and barely registering pain. Letting the other hand go, he quickly sucker-punched her back. Nancy fell to the ground, making noises fairly distinctive of a whale, before she said,

"You hit a girl! You can't do that!"

"I can fucking hit anyone if they hit me", he scoffed out.

"That's not fair! Woman hater!", she cried.

Adam looked at her in disbelief, before disengaging from the confrontation. He noticed that a couple of the girls were now glaring at him, but he just glared right back as he took his seat again, talking to his friend once more.

"I love bus rides", Perseus said with a wide grin on his face.

Grover, Perseus' best friend at his new school, merely looked disappointed, "I have no idea how these kids love violence so much".

"Sugar and bad parenting, my man, it never fails", was the reply.

Grover hummed, before pulling out his reed pipes again and playing a soft melody on it. It was a nice tune, Perseus thought. He almost seemed to melt into his seat in comfort, but at the same time his body tensed up, rejecting whatever forces were at play to calm him.

"What tune is this?", Perseus asked curiously.

"Hymm of the Cherubim", Grover replied, "It's a song from the Eastern Orthodox religion, the original was made without instruments and only voices, but I managed to adapt part of it to my pipes."

He kept playing the song for a while, before he stopped and said, "It's really sad how this song can be interpreted now."

"What? What do you mean, what it represents?", Perseus questioned. But he didn't receive an answer, instead Grover gave him a quick look, before exhaling through his nose and continuing the song.

Perseus shrugged.

**Linebreak**

The bus, full to the brim with forty-four children and two teachers, grinded to a halt at the Metropolitan Museum of History and Art, Manhattan.

An identical yellow bus parked behind their bus, totalling eighty-eight students and four teachers, who were mostly excited to be away from the typical schoolwork, none more in particular, than the resident history teacher and guru, Mr. Brunner.

However, one teacher looked particularly annoyed, though that was nothing new, Perseus' maths teacher, Ms. Dodds was trailing behind the new pack of forty-four students from the second bus. She was a mean little woman, who migrated to New York from Georgia. She was no taller than five foot seven, always wearing dark blue ripped jeans, some form of Deus Ex-Machina shirt, and a black leather jacket. She made quite the image for a maths classroom, but ultimately it worked, for not even Nancy disrupted the class.

Though, she had a special spot reserved for Perseus in her heart. She absolutely despised him above all others, constantly targeting him to answer the in-class questions, giving him a scolding when he couldn't get them right due to his dyslexia. Yelling at him, when he couldn't sit still due to his ADHD.

One day, she was so furious with the class that she sent three of the children to detention during their lunch time, Perseus included, and that night he said to Grover, "You know, I don't think she's human, at all, she's literally like a demon, or something, straight from Hell".

Instead of getting a laugh from the bushy haired boy like he expected, he got a straight faced, "You're absolutely right".

The consort of people was entering the building now, Mr. Brunner leading the way, chatting amiably to the students who were rushing to get up with him.

They walked past thousands year old pottery, coloured artefacts and the likes. Perseus was surprised that the museum, or people in general, cared so much for seemingly useless relics of history. _What knowledge did it provide? _He wondered.

Sure, Perseus understood the value of preserving weapons, armour, scriptures, statues and/or depictions of people, but _pottery?_

He was broken out of his thoughts when he realized the group had stopped, and he bumped into the back of Nancy.

"Watch out, faggot", She said, giving him the 'evil eye'.

"Watch it yourself, Bobofish", Perseus said cheekily.

"EURRGH DON'T CALL ME THAT", She furiously whispered, clenching her fists.

"Shut up fishy, Brunner's talking", He said, turning his attention back to Mr. Brunner, only to discover that he had paused his talking and was now staring at the two of them.

"Nancy, perhaps one of you can tell me why this titan here, Khronos, decided to eat his children?", Mr. Brunner asked.

"EWWWW", a couple of the girls on the other side of the group said.

"I don't know, he got hungry?", She said, shrugging with a barely hidden smile at her own cheek. Her only friend, Violet, snickered.

"No, young lady, answer my question properly", Brunner said, still unimpressed.

"I… don't know, sir", Nancy now said respectfully, watching Mr. Brunner warily.

"Perseus?", Brunner's attention now onto him, Perseus blushed lightly. Grover nudged him in encouragement, giving him a slight nod.

"Because Khronos was the king, and another god cursed him that… his children? Wouldn't they turn against him?", Perseus half asked half said.

"King? King of what? Of who? And what 'god' are you speaking about?", Mr. Brunner now said, pretending to be confused at Perseus' half-answer. That's what Perseus liked, but also disliked about the man, he always taught you things by questioning you to think. But poor Perseus was more physically orientated, than interested in History and Philosophy.

"King… of the Go-, no, the King of the Titans. Khronos killed somebody, one of the God's who existed before the Titans, but before he could kill them, they said that about his children, that's why he was paranoid." Perseus said, now slightly more confident in his answer.

"Good… Class, Khronos, the King of the Titans was cursed by his father, Ouranos, while Khronos and his brothers cut the primeval god down".

"Now, can anyone tell me what this statue over here is..?" Mr. Brunner's voice trailed off, but Perseus was no longer listening, he detached from the back of the group, to go look at the three statues in the corner of the room. One was holding a lightning bolt, and had a wreath on their head, the other was a man holding a trident, and the final man had a helmet on his head, obscuring every portion of his stone face.

He could easily identify them as the three elder gods of Olympus,

Zeus, the God of the Skies, Order, and Justice. King of Olympus.

Poseidon, the God of the Seas, Earthquakes, Storms, and Horses. King of Atlantis.

Hades, the God of the Dead, Riches. King of the Underworld.

He couldn't stop staring at the statue of Poseidon, however. Taking in every detail of his face, his body shape, his hair. It all felt just _wrong_, something was missing, the face was too serious, and the eyes were too blank, the body was too muscular and the beard felt out of place. He looked back, over at the class, they were starting to shuffle out, he took one last look at the statue, however his heart stopped when he noticed that the statue of Hades had its head turned towards him, the hidden eyes helmet now very visible, two glowing black orbs from under the stone helmet staring right at him.

_Thud_

_Thud_

_Thud_

His heart was beating rapidly.

He turned to run, only to knock his shoulder against the body of Ms. Dodds, which was surprisingly strong for such a small woman, she didn't even flinch or move back. He fell back onto his backside, looking up at her.

"Ms Dodds! The statue, its eyes! Look!" Perseus exclaimed. He looked back up at the statue, its eyes still the colour of Death. He felt sick, as he heard a sickening grinding from the statue, as the left hand took off the helmet, and underneath the statue was smiling gruesomely.

Perseus scampered back to Ms. Dodds, landing on her feet, however he felt even sicker when he saw that she was smiling back at the statue. She looked down at him, and he scampered back once again, looking at her in shock and fear. He looked back to where the class once was, but they were all out of the room by that point. His back up against the wall now, Mrs Dodds said,

"Now, honey, stand up, slowly. Give it to me, be a good boy", as her face rippled and her eyes started twinkling with some sort of light.

"I-I-I d-don't know what y-your talking about?!", Perseus in a confused whimper, "Stay away from me! You're really not human!", he yelled.

"No, of course, you're right honey. I'm not.", At that statement, her twinkling eyes suddenly flashed violet, as she spread her arms in an unnatural arrangement, and her body morphed from a teacher to some form of demon. She screamed out something almost unintelligible, but he felt like it meant '_die'_ in some archaic language.

He didn't need much more motivation than that to get on his feet and push off of the wall to run away from her, as she leapt at where he once was, bumping into the wall at the last second, screaming all the while.

Wings sprouted from her back and she was flying at Perseus before he had time to think about dodging, instead thinking about how dead he was.

Just before her extended claws were going to rip his face off, he noticed her eyes flicked to the left and widen, before three rapidly fired arrows lodged themselves in her wings, and upper torso, the raw power behind the shots catapulting her backwards, he could still feel the spots on his face where the arrows whizzed past. His head spun around instinctively, and he saw Mr. Brunner in his wheelchair, with a longbow in his arms and a look of utter fury on his face, his eyes a glowing brown.

Turning back, Perseus looked in morbid fascination as a golden stream of _something _dripped from the wounds, and the creature screamed, before ripping the arrows out and igniting fire from its palms, to cauterize the wounds.

Perseus' sinuses were suddenly assaulted with the scent of the sea, as the statue of Poseidon came to life and threw its trident at the once-Ms. Dodds, impacting her in the head, neck, and right shoulder, the body slowly dissolved into some form of golden dust, flowing into the air and dissipating.

The trident flew back into the palms of the statue, and it returned to its previous state, along with the Hades statue, with its helmet back on and no black glow from the eyes.

"Sir, what the hell was this?!", Perseus exclaimed, however his voice echoed around the chamber, and no answer was provided. Confused, he turned back to where 'Mr. Brunner' was, and saw nothing, there was no evidence that he had ever been there, the door was sealed shut.

Even more baffled, he looked back at where Ms. Dodds' body once was, however there was nothing there that would make anybody think a supernatural fight had just occurred here.

He jumped as he heard a door open, and a lady he didn't recognise walked in.

"Perseus? Why are you still in the museum? Everybody's looking for you!", The woman said, "Come on, you silly boy, let's go eat our lunches".

He followed her in a numb shock.

He grabbed his lunch and found Grover sitting by himself at the fountain, so he sat down next to him, but making no attempt to open his lunch, let alone start a conversation with his friend, his mind just repeating the face of the she-demon over and over.

"Percy? Did Mrs. Kerr give you detention again or something?", Grover asked, he appeared worried.

"She really wasn't human", Perseus said after a minute with wide eyes.

"Who?', Grover asked.

"Ms. Dodds."

"Uhh… Percy who's that?", now it seemed it was Grover's turn to appear confused.

"Our maths teacher, man", was the reply.

"No man, that's… Mrs. Kerr?", Grover insisted.

Before the two of them could keep talking about the 'teachers', Nancy Bobofit walked over to them.

"I heard that Mrs. Kerr found you standing by yourself in the museum looking at old-ass statues. You're such a loser.", She said, clutching her sides in laughter.

Grover was just silently eating his food, staring up at the red-headed girl, when she looked at him, "What are you looking at, faggot?", she said.

He looked away from her, so she went to hit his food out of his hands. Because of this, Perseus was pulled out of the mental loop of Mrs. Dodds' face at her usage of profanity and stood up and pushed her away before she could hit Grover, "Go away Nancy, no one likes you", he said.

"You're dead now", Nancy said. She checked her body for scratches, and found one on her right elbow, where she landed on, she ran to Mrs. Kerr and faked tears, telling her how Perseus had attacked her.

"You know, you really shouldn't touch these bullies, Percy", Grover said, with a mouthful of food.

"I don't know, man, you look like you're enjoying your food there", was his reply.

"Oh, fine, you've got a point", Grover said, still eating his food.

**Linebreak**

Later that night, Perseus had to serve a detention with 'Mrs. Kerr', he still had no idea who she was, but after the conversation he had with Grover, he thought it might be best to keep his mouth shut. He knew that he definitely saw Mr. Brunner there, and he wanted to talk to him about it, but he hasn't had the chance. Time after time again throughout the day, something has kept him busy, between Grover suddenly wanting to chat a lot and play poker with him, them spending the rest of the afternoon and early evening learning how to play.

But Perseus couldn't forget what he saw, and on his way to Mrs. Kerr's office to serve detention, he peered around the dark corners before walking past them, paranoid that something would jump out.

Getting closer and closer to the office, he saw, out the corner of his eye, a painting on the wall that looked exactly like the Hades statue he saw in the museum. He froze. He still hadn't turned to face the painting yet, calming his breath, but he could swear that he saw the eyes focused on him, which was odd because he wasn't directly infront of it.

He took a step forward, and another, and another, then veered his hear around to look at it, but he saw nothing at all, there was no person in the painting, instead it was a large three headed dog.

Perseus shook his head and rubbed his eyes, and he continued walking to Mrs. Kerrs office.

The detention itself was largely insignificant, he just helped the teacher clean the room and tidy files and documents up. The hour went by quickly. He looked up at the time, it was ten O'clock exactly.

"Go on, go to bed Perseus", came Kerr's voice.

"Goodnight, miss", Perseus said.

He began the walk back to his dormitory, but suddenly he felt the need to speak to Mr. Brunner, something that he had been meaning to do but never did. His eyelids started drooping, but the feeling solidified in his stomach, and he began the trek to Brunner's office.

The hallways were dead, and nobody was around, making his journey relatively quick without the usual clutter of students. He found his way out to the front of Mr. Brunner's office, though he had just heard a distinct muffle of voices. Perching himself by the door, which was slightly open, he listened in on the conversation.

He heard part of something, "-indly Ones, Chiro-" cut off by another voice saying, "Shhhh! Use my moniker here, damnit", sounding a lot the teacher that he was here to see, Mr. Brunner.

"Sir, he's not stupid, he knows that he saw something that can't be explained by normal rationale. Di immortales, he felt the presence of two major gods in the same room, I'm surprised he didn't pass out!", a voice now sounding a lot his friend's, Grover.

Certain that the information was now relevant to him, he leant in closer to the door, trying to make no noise shuffling along the ground and along the wall.

Brunner's voice was still silent.

"He can't stay here, Sir, I've already killed two hellhounds", Grover said again.

"You're right, I eliminated the Chimera earlier. Go, go get him. He leaves for camp tonight.", Mr. Brunner said with finality.

'For camp?' Perseus thought, his heart pounding, thinking he was being drafted into some sort of arcane military.

It was a split second instinct that made him stand up, take a deep breath, and push open the door, revealing his presence. He walked in with his head high and jaw squared, looking at straight at Mr. Brunner.

The teacher was momentarily surprised, before he said, "Welcome, young man. We were just talking about you, but I can see that you already know that".


End file.
